UPDATE: Hamid Ahmadi's execution has been stayed!

UPDATE - 14/02/2017

We have just learned that Hamid Ahmadi’s execution has been stayed. The authorities have informed his family that they have stopped all plans to execute him.

We understand that this development has come about because the Iranian authorities have felt the pressure from huge public campaigning and private advocacy efforts, spearheaded by Amnesty International.

Thank you to everyone for your support. We will continue monitoring Hamid Ahmadi’s situation to ensure that the Iranian authorities stay true to their word.

UPDATE - 13/02/2017

Hamid Ahmadi, who was due to be executed on Saturday 11 February has been given until this Saturday 18 February to convince the family of the man he is accused of killing to forgive him and, therefore, avoid the death penalty.

We need you to keep tweeting the Iranian authorities.

Tell them not to abdicate their responsibility towards Hamid and to follow international human rights law. They need to drop the charges against Hamid - which were based on a 'confession' extracted through torture - and give him a fair trial. Without employing the death penalty.

Tortured in to a 'Confession'

Back in 2008 Hamid was found guilty of stabbing a young man during a fight that broke out amongst five boys in the city of Siahkal, Gilan Province in Iran.

At the police station he was not allowed access to his family or to a lawyer, and instead, he was tortured until he ‘confessed’.

On 28 January, he was moved to solitary confinement in Lakan prison in the city of Rasht, Gilan Province, where he is imprisoned, in preparation for his execution.

He was initially scheduled to be executed on 4 February. On 2 February, his family were informed that his execution had been postponed by a week and would take place on Saturday 11 February.

Tweet the Iranian authorities now

We need you, and as many others as possible, to call on the Iranian authorities to stop the execution of Hamid Ahmadi. Please send a tweet now and share this image:

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Back in May 2015 his execution was halted at the last minute due to public pressure and he was granted a retrial. However, the Provincial Criminal Court of Gilan Province sentenced him to death for the second time in December 2015.

This will be the fourth time Hamid has been scheduled to be executed and subjected to the agony of being transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for execution.

This needs to stop. Call on the the Iranian authorities to quash his conviction and grant him a fair retrial in accordance with the principles of juvenile justice, without resort to the death penalty.

This may be his last chance

An application for retrial is with the Supreme Court but we’re yet to hear whether it’ll be granted. Information received from the Office of the Prosecutor in Rasht is keen for Hamid Ahmadi’s execution to go ahead, on the basis that he has already been in prison for 10 years and it is time that his execution sentence is implemented.

Likewise, the family of the victim, who under Iranian law have the right to either insist on execution or to grant pardon and accept compensation, insist that his execution is carried out.

We need to let Iran know that the world is watching as they break international human rights law. Both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, strictly prohibit the imposition of death sentences on people under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.

Spike in executions

Over the past month the Iranian authorities have executed two young men arrested as children. We have recorded at least 77 executions of juvenile offenders between 2005 and 2017.

According to a UN report issued in 2014, at least 160 juvenile offenders are now on death row - some of them have been on death row for over a decade. They are either unaware of their right to seek a retrial based on the new provisions of the 2013 Islamic Penal Code or do not have the means to retain a lawyer to seek it for them.

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